Ronan O’Gara has spoken poignantly on the passing of his friend and former teammate Anthony Foley before. This was the first time he opened up on that memorable Thomond Park send-off.
October 22, 2016. No-one who was at the famous Limerick ground that day will forget it in a hurry.
Six days after the passing of their coach, Anthony ‘Axel’ Foley, Munster’s players went out to pay tribute in the best possible way – the Munster way. Glasgow Warriors were on the receiving end as red waves, roared on by manic home support, came relentlessly on.
O’Gara was in the Thomond Park crowd that day and he was joined by many of his former Munster teammates. For the first time, during The Hard Yards, he spoke about that fateful day:
“It was difficult to be in the ground, never mind trying to play. And then Earlsy getting the red card. The guy that – and it’s weird in sport – would have been closest to Axel in that team, you know. He feels frustrated and him kicking a water bottle, that’s my memory of the day as well.
“It was fantastic to be there. I’ve never talked about this and it’s difficult to talk about it but there is something beautiful about it as well.
“I was next to John Kelly, who I had played with for an awful amount of years, and everything you did in a red jersey, all the memories came flooding back. You could just picture Axel scoring in the right-hand corner against Biarritz. Getting his hat-trick and free pizzas for life! Just everything that was good about it.”
O’Gara continued:
“It was a really hard day. The tissue was out of the pocket for long periods of that game. It was so bizarre.
“People will say to you that you cope with things differently but for the players that have played with him, it certainly still hasn’t hit us. It’s… when is he going to come back into the dressing room or when will he pick up the phone?
“It’s still too raw, in terms of trying to get your head around it. For me, it wouldn’t even come into my head that that happened this season because I’ve lost the perspective on when this happened. But it is the moment of this [season]. That performance, not only by the team but it’s why the Munster supporters are known for their class.
“It was unbelievably good, in a really sad way, to see everyone you played with at Munster and why they were there. And fellas like, the two that stand out are Gaillimh and Claw. To see how broken they were yet they could still smile, it was just fantastic.”
You can listen to O’Gara on that special day from 32:10 below…
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